Eden-Monaro

NSW South-East

Marginal Labor 4.2%

MP

Mike Kelly (ALP) since 2007. Minister for Defence Materiel.

Profile

Eden-Monaro is a mixed electorate covering 29,499 sq.km in the south-east corner of NSW. The largest concentration of voters lives in the Canberra overflow around Queanbeyan, but the electorate also includes the fishing, holiday and retirement towns of Narooma, Bermagui and Batemans Bay, the agricultural and forestry districts around Bega and Eden, as well as Cooma and the NSW snowfields. (Map)

Background

Eden-Monaro has existed since Federation and has been held by all parties over the years. The seat has always had a tendency to be won by the party that forms government, but this tendency has assumed 'litmus test' proportions since 1972, the seat having been won by the party that formed government at every election since 1972.

Past Voting Patterns

As the graph below shows, Labor's 2-party preferred percentage in Eden-Monaro has tracked Labor's statewide vote remarkably closely. Only twice, in the late 1980s and again in 2010, has a gap opened between Labor's Eden-Monaro and NSW performances. The 2010 result came about because while Labor did badly in the Sydney basin in 2010, it improved its margin in all seats it held elsewhere in the state.

2013 Ballot Paper (8 Candidates)

Candidate Name

Party

HENDY, Peter

Liberal

TYE, Martin

Stable Population Party

KELLY, Mike

Labor

LYNCH, Dean

Palmer United Party

MOORE, Catherine

The Greens

GOUMAS, Costas

Citizens Electoral Council

THALER, Andrew

Independent

CATTON, Warren

Christian Democratic Party (Fred Nile Group)

Candidates

Peter Hendy

Liberal

Dr Peter Hendy has most recently worked as an advisor to Liberal Deputy Leader Julie Bishop, but has a long background in business and economics. He started his working career as cadet economist with the Federal Treasury before becoming a director of the Australian Made, Australian Grown campaign. He spent six years as the Chief Executive of the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry. He has a PhD in private sector and government relations and is a collector of Australian political biographies. He previously worked as Chief of Staff for Peter Reith while a minister in the Howard government.

Martin Tye

Mike Kelly

Labor

53 year-old Dr Kelly is a former Colonel in the Australian Defence Force first elected in 2007. Kelly has worked as a military lawyer in a string of the world's more intractable trouble spots including Somalia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, East Timor and Iraq. His service includes considerable work in investigating and prosecuting war crime and genocide cases. In Somalia Kelly was responsible for the case against murderous warlord Hussan Gutaale Abdul. The warlord was executed, Kelly feeling no regret about the execution despite his own opposition to the death penalty. In Iraq he was seconded to work for the Coalition Provisional Authority. After his election, Kelly was appointed a Parliamentary Secretary and became Minister for Defence Materiel in February 2013.

Dean Lynch

Catherine Moore

The Greens

Moore is a former Councillor on Palerang Council and has lived in Eden-Monaro since 1981. She has been a Greens member since 1993 and was the Greens candidate for Monaro at four state elections from 1995 to 2007 and was on the Green Legislative Council ticket in 2011. Moore describes herself as an artist and has built her solar-powered earth house with composting toilet at Charleys Forest in the north-eastern part of the electorate.

Costas Goumas

Andrew Thaler

Independent

Thaler lives in Nimmitabel with his wife and three young children. Together with his wife he runs a scrap metal recycling business in Cooma. I have a strong background in resource conservation and management, having operated the recycling business for 20 years, after establishing it as a second year apprentice Electrical Fitter. He is also actively involved in Solar Energy, installing several Solar PV systems totalling 36kW on the scrap businesses and is currently in the process of purchasing a redundant and damaged 477kW Solar PV Farm which he intends to repair.